


(Be)longing

by ididntwanttoshipit



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Eventual Smut, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hurt/Comfort, I KNOW who does that, Major Character Injury, Plot, Post TLJ, Reylo - Freeform, Running Away, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Virgin Kylo Ren, Virgin Rey, daily updates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-08 17:59:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 5,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13463553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ididntwanttoshipit/pseuds/ididntwanttoshipit
Summary: "Had she ever truly experienced home in the way most others described it? Had a place or a person ever truly made her feel safe deep down in those darkest most fearful recesses of her being? Had anyone ever put her at peace?"A Star Wars Reylo fanfiction, based after the events of The Last Jedi. Spoilers within. Updated daily.





	1. Ch.1

It was only a soft tickle at first. But it was a clue. One Rey preferred to ignore, at that.

But it helped nothing, and as the gentle whisper of the sleeping breath of another rustled the baby hairs at her ear, she realized her mental defenses had been for nothing.

It was an endurance race, keeping their minds - souls - apart. There was something the Force wanted…needed from them. Rey had thought she had known what it was; to restore Ben Solo to the light, and strike down the First Order at his side. To unmake the horror he helped unleash upon the galaxy. To heal.

But Snoke was dead, Kylo had choked Ben back into submission, Luke was gone, the Resistance was picked down to a handful of souls, and hopelessness bled into Rey’s every thought. Especially at night, alone, in a bunk on a ship that felt familiar but not quite like home.

Had she ever truly experienced home in the way most others described it? Had a place or a person ever truly made her feel safe deep down in those darkest most fearful recesses of her being? Had anyone ever put her at peace?

She had thought, once, that Finn would be her home. But she could never begrudge him for finding that in someone else. She knew every risk when she left.

Once more she had considered that Luke might become her home. But once faced with the bitter, defeated man, that hope crumbled to ash before her eyes.

But the last time…no. It was still so fresh, so raw, like a blaster to the gut every time it flickered through her mind-

A soft whimper and a subtle shift behind her stilled Rey’s thoughts.

 _‘Just like when you shot him?’_ A dark corner of her mind blurted, but it didn’t feel entirely her own.

 _‘You could have tried harder,’_ it pressed. Something hot and wet that Rey refused to acknowledge dripped onto the pillow beneath her sleepless eyes.

_'He could have been your home.’_

Rey squeezed her eyes shut tight, fists white-knuckled around bundles of threadbare sheets, tears freely flowing.

 _'He made his choice,’_ she pushed back feebly. It was true. But it didn’t make the twisting in her gut cease, or the silent sobs rocking her body settle.

Too late she realized that soft tickle, the steady breathing, was gone.

“Rey.”

No. No. No no no no no-

Fingers. Soft. Combing through her hair…

So desperately she wished she could slam the door shut again, cut him off, keep him away-

“Shhh…”

She wasn’t strong enough to keep up. Didn’t have it in her to run. Soft fingers turned into a warm hand gliding down her neck, over her shoulder, down her waist…

'Stop,’ the word was silently pushed across their bond. She couldn’t trust her voice.

The hand stilled only for a moment before slipping back up to lace their fingers. She let it happen, realizing all at once how hard her heart was beating, how flushed her cheeks, how ragged her breathing, how dully her head ached…

“Shh.” Just as soft. Gentleness felt foreign. But not from him.

Warmth surrounded her, a pressure against her back she wasn’t accustomed to. Soft, tickling breaths resumed, this time dangerously close to her neck.

“Shh,” the voice repeated.

She shuddered. The room shrank away.

Maybe this could be home for now. Destiny could come later.


	2. Chapter 2

All morning Rey’s head ached with exhaustion. Snapshots of the previous night played across her closed eyelids. Ghosts of breath at her neck, sending goosebumps down her arms. The goings on of the morning briefing escaped her. Her mind felt clouded, fuzzy, unfocused for the first time she could remember.

Finn was the first to notice. Her half-hearted placations did little to soothe him, but he was soon swept away by his duties with Rose.

A shadow of something like jealousy danced over her when he finally departed.

Leia said nothing, but gave her arm a hard squeeze and her eyes a stern look. Rey knew she couldn’t begin to explain the depth of her turmoil. Not with words, never with such crude instruments. But the loss. Leia could understand that much already.

Rey boarded the Falcon, Chewie at her heels. An early warning sensor buoy had gone down outside the Resistance’s latest haunt, giving Leia the perfect way to keep Rey busy.

Rey wondered briefly if the General had ever been cared for as fiercely as she cared for others.

Chewie took the controls while Rey prepped the replacement buoy for deployment. It wasn’t much of a distraction, but for the moment, it would do.

A tingle ran down her spine.

A woozy feeling took hold of her body, and her eyes slid shut of their own volition. She only came to when her hydro spanner slipped from her fingers - but instead of the sound of it crashing to the deck plate, came the soft slap of it landing onto flesh.

Kneeling before her. Breath coming in pants. Chest slicked and hair dampened with sweat. Eyes dark, intense, already boring into her…

She released the breath she had forgotten she was holding.

“Distracted?” Quiet, even, calm. Hand outstretched with her hydro spanner on offer.

How did he always manage that? Why didn’t he hate her like she wanted to hate him?

Her fingers closed around the tool, eyes still locked to his. She didn’t want to speak. She didn’t know what would tumble from her lips.

He looked tired. Not from the training she had clearly just interrupted. Drained in a way she hadn’t seen on him yet.

‘Are you?’ She asked without words.

He let his arm fall limp back to his side, but his fist balled. She found a nerve.

‘The First Order is fractured.’ He admitted it easily, returning to his full height to continue his form.

Rey stepped away to give him some space. 'Why would you tell me that?’

“You’d have found out soon enough,” he muttered as he arched his body to one side. 'Hux left with his own dreadnought.’

'How do I know this isn’t a trap?’ Rey circled him as he stretched and swung, observing his form. Though which, at the moment, she couldn’t tell.

She felt his smirk before she saw it.

'I don’t really care if you believe me,’ the soft swoop of a fist barely avoiding Rey’s head. “Just making conversation.”

Rey scowled.

'Aren’t you afraid of giving away your forms?’ She stepped away again to circle to his side. His eyes stayed on hers until he moved again, towards her.

She found herself leaning out of the way of his arm before she realized the strike was coming. Between her feet she bounced, ducking this way and that, only the sound of bellowing fabric about them until her feet were no longer beneath her, her body landing at an awkward angle against the counters and the wall. He was upon her immediately, his arm at her throat and his body looming over her.

“You need to improve your foot work,” he breathed. Their noses nearly touched.

Rey heard nothing but her pulse in her ears and their matched panting breaths.

All at once it was over, he had bounced back to his feet with uncharacteristic buoyancy, and his hand was again outstretched.

Rey hesitated. Searched his eyes. Found no edges of suspicion, only blown pupils and dark circles.

Her trembling fingers reached out, slowly, only a hair’s breadth from the warmth of his palm-

And he was gone.

Rey screamed.


	3. Chapter 3

Rey couldn’t sleep. Again.

BB-8 knew something was wrong, had seen her fall on the Falcon. Heard the scream ripping from her core.

Chewie thought nothing of it. He brushed it off as human clumsiness and told the droid to drop it.

How long could she keep this up? How long until they found out? What would they do once they knew of this bond?

She knew Finn would want to find a way to exploit it. Listen in on confidential meetings. Manipulate Ben. But it didn’t work that way.

She was most afraid of what Leia would think. Would it give her false hope? Would she fear that it could be used against them? Would Rey only matter so long as she stood a chance of returning Leia’s only son?

She knew better than to feed any of Ben’s intel to the Resistance. But, mere hours after his confession of weakness, their sources confirmed that the First Order had splintered. Reports of various First Order ships scrambling for control over what had been their own facilities were numerous, and left no room for doubt.

They were fractured, weakened, but most importantly - they were too involved with their own power squabbles to concern themselves with the remnants of the Resistance.

Rey wanted to believe Ben had done this intentionally.

Ben…

From the center of her stomach crept a sick black darkness. It ate at her gut, caused her to grab at the front of her thin tank top - at nothing - before she saw it. Hot red flashes of pain spiked over her body, as though it were being compressed from every direction. A body hung midair. Crimson gashes appeared on pale white flesh, seemingly from nowhere. A scream. The echo of a years old agony.

And closer, a whimper.

_“Worthless. Failure.”_ Words that had been spat down from on high.

Rey immediately turned in her bunk. Found the trembling shape of a sleeping man easily twice her size. Tucked him into her arms, without hesitation.

The final reverberations of the scream rang through, his breathing stabilizing against her chest.

“Shh,” she finally whispered, fingers moving through dark locks.

‘You did this for me once.’


	4. Chapter 4

Morning came as it generally did when in deep space; arbitrarily, with only a quiet but irritating beeping announcing its arrival.

A soft metallic _crunch_ and the droning ceased.

Rey’s stomach seemed to drop out of her body when she realized she was not alone in her bunk.

This wasn’t possible…All of their other meetings had been so relatively brief. Could he really have been there all night?

A slow, steady intake of breath above her head and a rough palm settling at the small of her back told her enough.

Rey was maybe freaking out. A little.

She had hugged people, yes. But this was not a simple hug between friends. This was a very large, not very friendly man. Who was very shirtless.

’ _And very much not really there,_ ’ her mind offered. It didn’t help the burning of her cheeks. It kind of made her want to punch herself.

A sharp sniff chilled Rey’s blood.

Why had she thought it could be as simple as giving a pained man comfort during his worst nightmares?

‘Are you alright?’ It was fumbled out, pushed lazily across their bond before he had fully regained his words. Something warm twisted in her belly.

He could feel her…well. She didn’t know exactly what this feeling was. But he was in tune enough to sense it before his eyes had even pried themselves open.

‘I-I’m fine.’ She wondered how even the voice of her mind could betray her.

“What…” He started, shifted, drew in a tight breath, “…are you doing?”

“You had a nightmare,” it was the simplest answer she could give, in the flattest tone she could manage. Her body was still frozen in the same position she’d woken up in, with one hand spread flat against his bare chest.

She worked to ignore the flutter she could feel beneath her fingertips.

“Rey…”

“I just,” she drew a breath and some courage with it. “You were in pain.”

Silence stretched on for a long time. Maybe he was trying to recall the nightmare in question. Maybe he was wondering why she cared. Maybe he was puzzling out why she thought this particularly compromising position would help him. Maybe it was disbelief.

Another, longer inhale.

“I’m not wearing pants.”

“Oh.”

If Rey felt frozen before, she may as well have been encased in Carbonite now. She considered very briefly the fact that she had never seen a man naked. Not in person at the least.

A sick feeling crowded around her stomach, but she knew it wasn’t hers. A weakness sapped at her muscles. Disgust. Powerful, all consuming. But not for her.

Entirely for himself.

He left her arms empty in a panicked jolt, clutching a sheet about his waist as he moved away. ’ _Repulsive creature._ ’ The thought was not her own, but it echoed loudly enough to be overheard.

Rey wondered when she had started crying.

“Why?” It was the only thing she could manage through the rolling agony pulsing through their bond.

He glanced at her over his shoulder, already across the room at what she could only assume was his dresser. Rey distractedly realized she recognized one of the old scars on his shoulder from his nightmare.

He was like a powder keg in all other situations, but now. Now his eyes moved over hers as though his mind was not a storm. As though he were basking in its aftermath.

“Why what?” He dared to reply. Rey couldn’t tell if it was a challenge, or genuine confusion - his pain was so _loud_.

“Have you always thought of yourself this way?” She pressed on. Could feel the way his stomach clenched, his skin chilled, how he _needed_ his suit, his cowl, his boots, his gloves, his _helmet_ -

'No,’ she said clearly. Authoritatively. He could not hide again. Not like that. She wouldn’t allow it.

It was then that he appeared stricken. Brows drawn together and upward. Eyes searching hers. Confusion. Shame, in such a thunderous chorus

She wondered how much of her feelings he could sense over the intensity of his own.

Empathy. Caring. A distant tingle she couldn’t place. Things she had never wanted to feel for him before.

The door to her room opened with a hiss, pulling her eyes from his. By the time she looked back, he was gone.

BB-8 rolled in, excitedly announcing he had found her favorite flavor of nutrient bar for breakfast.

She pretended to have an appetite for food.


	5. Chapter 5

It was too quiet.

For so long, Rey had spent her time jumping from one disaster to the next. The weight of millions of souls hanging on her every action. Every inaction.

But now the Resistance was safe. It was regrouping old allies. It was bringing new recruits from worlds ripped apart by the factions of the First Order.

What was her place now?

It wasn’t as though there was nothing to be done. But as a well-known figure of the Resistance, safety was always of greater concern. Or that was Leia’s excuse. No matter Rey’s protests, no matter how many times she asserted she could take care of herself. Under normal circumstances she would have simply done as she liked, taking tasks as they came. But these were not normal circumstances, and she did not feel rightly herself.

A long sigh escaped her lips. She folded her legs and attempted to meditate.

She imagined herself back on Ahch-To. Listening to the waves crash. The chattering of the caretakers.

Disappointing as that island had been, its beauty was undeniable. Filled her with a serenity that made it easy to see why the Jedi had settled there once.

She let herself wander the island of her mind.

It always felt bigger like this. Not crowded with the presence of a bitter man. Like it could belong to her, and her to it. All of it.

Her boots squished through the mud of a trail up the mountain. It was twilight - always seemed to be when she visited this place. Her current path led her along a jagged outcropping. She wondered what would happen if she fell, here.

Her fingers brushed over the sharp ocean-blown edges of rocks along the trail. It was damp, and her heart fluttered. Nowhere else in the galaxy had ever felt so vividly alive to her.

With a final clamber up a cluster of stairs, she had reached the group of huts she had stayed many nights in. Her feet instinctively took her to her own. The one that no longer existed in reality. To the place she had finally _seen_ her enemy.

The fire crackled peacefully in the background as she moved to sit. She was reminded of solitary nights long ago on Jakku.

And a certain less solitary night in this very hut.

She could still remember the tickle of their fingers touching. The electricity arcing between them. What it was like to hear those words from someone and to really, truly believe them.

“ _You’re not alone._ ”

Her breath hitched. She remembered his eyes, so fittingly reflecting the dancing flame. Something within her instinctively reached out, though she did not know for what.

There was a flinch. A recoil.

The island faded away, fizzled out with the rejection. Pain curled around her heart. Loneliness chased after it, both an echo and a murmur from within. The serenity she had cultivated withered in seconds.

Silence enveloped her again.


	6. Chapter 6

The Resistance had captured a very important prisoner.

When Rey found out, she demanded they return to the base as quickly as physically possible. Chewie looked a little afraid at how manic she had become. But this was important. This was leverage.

Panic pulsed from somewhere distant, but she pushed the feeling from her mind.

They arrived at the base quickly enough, but Rey should have known having an audience with the prisoner would not be so simple.

“She was captured attempting to disrupt the operations of one of our fighter manufacturers,” Leia answered the question Rey hadn’t asked. She could sense it was a means of deflecting her request before she’d made it.

“We believe her to be one of the Knights of Ren.”

She pressed on anyway. “Let me speak to her.”

“Absolutely not,” Leia snapped back without a moment’s hesitation.

“I can get her to talk,” Rey continued. “I know you haven’t had any luck.”

Leia’s mouth was drawn in a thin line.

“You can’t,” this time it was a plea. “It’s too risky.”

The Cathar behind the observation glass stilled in her pacing. Her eyes snapped up, locking directly to where she knew Rey to be, but could not see.

Rey’s stomach seized for a moment as she held the gaze.

Her eyes flickered back to Leia’s.

“I can do this,” she breathed. A calm confidence radiated from her words. Leia turned away. She knew the General didn’t have it in her to fight Rey on this. Two fingers waved at the guard told her she was allowed to enter.

Not once since the Cathar had been captured had she rested - always pacing, always trying and probing her cell for weaknesses. Not one word escaped her, unless you counted the primal hiss she spat at any that entered her enclosure. Never fought. But she had the air of a wild thing. Something that reminded her of Ben.

She wondered if the capture was intentional.

Rey stepped through the doorway and locked eyes with the other woman.

‘No,’ it was an intense murmur, and for only a split second she saw him in her mind. Staring at her. He was unkempt, had days old stubble, face specked with dirt and blood. Saber alight. He was in the thick of battle. But after days of fighting the bond, this moment had ripped through his defenses. This woman was important.

Rey knew jealousy was not the correct response.

“Coward,” the cat spat at her. Rey frowned. She knew her face would be recognized. But this was more. She let her feet carry her closer as the door slid shut behind.

“I’ve bested your master in combat,” Rey stated calmly. “I believe some might find that brave.”

The Cathar bared her teeth. “But you were too weak to accept a place at his side.”

‘Stop this,’ another flash. His arms raised to deflect a barrage of blaster bolts. Rey fought to regain her center.

“As was he too weak to accept one with me,” Rey said it clearly, let it ring loud across their bond. He ached like she wanted him to from those words.

“Fool.” Rage bled through every word, every edge. Rey noticed that the woman’s claws were extended.

This woman meant to kill her.

'Leave. Now.’ He begged this time. She saw him plunge his crackling saber through the chest of a First Order officer and couldn’t decide how it made her feel.

The Cathar’s head tilted. She smiled. “You see him now.”

Rey’s body began to tremble.

A sudden, white hot pain ripped through her ribcage. Her hands flew to the spot, jaw slack and eyes wide as she stumbled backwards. The warm ghost of blood dribbled down her fingers, over her stomach.

The last thing she remembered was the woman’s confused gaze as she watched Rey collapse to the floor.


	7. Chapter 7

When she awoke she found herself in the infirmary. Hooked to machines with medical scanners pointed from all directions. They had no idea what had happened, couldn’t find a way to help her. _Still_ didn’t know what was going on.

She tried to take a breath, and found it not dissimilar from trying to open your lungs while underwater.

The room dimmed and became hazy. He was there.

“Ben,” she whispered. The effort the simple word took was excruciating.

“Rey,” he murmured. She fought to a sitting position, still struggling to breathe. That’s when she saw him.

Slumped against the wall. A pool of blood collecting around his nearly motionless form. Chest heaving with unnatural effort. The source of the blood, a respectable hole in his side, finally shimmering into focus.

She took another gasping breath.

He was dying.

“BEN!” She screamed it this time. Tore every instrument from her flesh. Lashed out with the Force at the sensors. Scrambled out of bed. Flew to his side.

“No,” he tried to turn away. There was a blind panic flowing from him. Claustrophobia. Shame. ’ _Pathetic worm._ ’ He couldn’t even die nobly.

“Not like this…” Barely more than a gurgled whisper.

“Ben,” she chanted the name again, hands at his shoulders now. “You’ve got to get up. Right now.”

A fresh trickle of blood bubbled from his lips.

“Please. Not like this,” she mirrored his words.

Not another loss. Not another death.

“You’re not alone.”

She refused to be, ever again.

He laid still, watching her tears spill down her face with a kind of detached interest. She watched them land onto his suit and mingle with the blood there. His life force was fading.

“I…had always thought…I would die a hideous death.”

Trembling fingers reached out with impossible effort. Rey didn’t dodge them. Let them brush at a stream of tears, tuck back a lock of her hair. Locked her tearful, focused eyes on his fading ones.

“But this…This will do.”

His eyes slid shut. Arm went slack.

“Rey-” panicked voices echoed down the hallway, hurried footsteps growing in volume, the hum of the med droid coming back online. Finn gripped her shoulders. Someone asked where the blood on her cheek had come from.

A soft shake of her shoulders pulled her out of her trance. His body had faded into nothingness. “Are you okay?”

The world came back into focus.

“I need to speak with the Cathar again.”

Rey ran from the room before anyone had time to respond.

“She tried to kill you!” Finn yelled down the hall, hot on her heels. He didn’t understand. But he would soon.

She couldn’t do nothing. Couldn’t even see not taking action as an option

“Where is he?” It was a demand, made the instant she burst through the cell door. The woman scrutinized her, but was not surprised. Curious.

“Why would I tell you?” There was a part of the Cathar that was afraid.

“Because your Master is dying.”

She heard Leia’s soft intake of breath.

The Cathar’s ears flattened as she stared. She wanted to look skeptical. But as her eyes flicked between Rey’s, it was obvious that she knew it to be true.

“I will not tell you.” She twisted in her new cuffs. “But I will take you there.”

Rey’s eyes shot straight to Leia, loitering in the doorway. She looked uncertain. Shell shocked. Rey’s expression turned pleading.

Leia nodded and left the room. Didn’t look back.

Rey could sense the betrayal she felt.


	8. Chapter 8

“How long?”

It was a far cry from the interrogation Rey had expected. But the sick coil of guilt in her gut tightened all the same.

“Part of me thinks it’s always been there.” She couldn’t meet Leia’s eyes. She nodded in response, though, an understanding Rey hadn’t thought possible. A gentle hand found her shoulder.

“Do what you must.”

The words bounced inside Rey’s mind as she boarded the Falcon with Chewie and the Cathar.

‘Ben,’ she touched their bond. Fear coursed through her as each second of silence stretched on for an eternity. Chewie prepped the launch sequence.

‘Hurry.’

He didn’t need to be told that she would.

“What is your name?” Rey finally dared to ask once they were en route. The cat had offered only course corrections, no set coordinates. But Rey could sense they were being followed.

“I am only a passing shadow.” Her focus was out the view screen, presumably on her Master. She smiled as she turned to Rey. “You could not pronounce it.”

Rey huffed in amusement. Her hands were still fiddling with the controls, fighting for every bit of speed she could muster from the bucket of bolts.

They arrived at the battle sooner than she had expected. Destroyers littered the orbit of the planet, locked in fierce combat with one another. Debris was flung far from the action. It was chaos. On the hot, lava-specked planet below was a valuable weapons depot.

As well as the man she had come to save.

Ben slipped just a little further away.

“Take us down.”

Entering the atmosphere was easy enough with the busy TIE fighters spinning about, picking each other off one by one. They hadn’t the time or inclination to engage the Falcon. Now it was Rey’s turn to lead them. She followed the gentle tug of Ben’s mind.

'We’re nearly there,’ she pushed across as they began the landing cycle. 'Hold on.’

The party disembarked with breathing masks securely in place. It was a sweltering, unforgiving planet. Ash black as night covered the ground and drifted through the air. He was so close. And yet drifting further away…

“This way,” she announced to the small group before rounding a corner of vicious jagged rock.

Stormtroopers. Her mind was so focused on him she hadn’t sensed their presence.

Chewie let out a yowl before he started firing. The cat was unarmed - had her lightsaber confiscated and was not allowed it back - but she managed perfectly well. Claws extended, scream ripping from her core, she seemed to fade away into an inky black cloud only to reappear as she slashed the throat out of one of the troops. Shadow seemed fitting now.

Rey hefted her staff, fingers aching instead for the blade still split in two. She waded into the battle nonetheless, staff connecting with two troopers as she swung it in a large arc.

The men stood no chance. Some even understood this and fled. But the Cathar, the shadow, would not let them escape. Another scream, another trooper with his throat slashed, and she disappeared after the others. Rey knew who had fostered her brutality.

She wondered now, eyes dancing over the bodies littered on the ground, the blood…why she had come.

Why did this man deserve to be saved?

_'You are the balance,’_ something far away whispered to her. She did not recognize the voice. _'Both of you.’_

Her feet carried her away in a sprint. Chewie followed.

The tug led them to the mouth of a cave. Impossibly dark, with no air to be had. Rey gasped. Clutched her chest. Chewie asked her what was wrong.

He was here.

She stepped into the cave without a word.

And never saw her coming.


	9. Chapter 9

Razor sharp claws slashed across Rey’s face.

She collapsed in a useless heap, staff bouncing away into the cave. Head spinning.

Nothing felt real.

A roar echoed from behind her, and she felt distantly aware of the clatter of Chewie’s bowcaster joining her staff. The hiss of the Cathar as the two tore into each other’s flesh.

“ITZAL!”

Everything snapped back into focus.

The scream boomed through the air in an unnatural way. The crackle of a lightsaber coming alive followed.

He was there. Swaying on his feet. Filled with a righteous rage powerful enough to carry him through.

Rey wondered if she couldn’t see from her left eye because of her own blood pouring into it or because it had been cut through as well.

Chewie and the cat - Itzal - separated. Both stared in disbelief.

Blood. Still drip, drip, dripping from his wound.

“Master,” the cat had a vicious smile as she kneeled. “I have brought you your prize.”

“Go.” It was an order. A plea. Rey could feel that he still had a fondness for the creature.

She looked stricken. Indignant. How could he refuse her gift?

“Her life is yours for the taking,” Itzal explained as she rose to her feet. “Their hope can be extinguished, you can use this to claim your rightful place as Supreme Leader over all and reunite-”

“Enough!” He boomed again, the walls about them seeming to tremble.

Itzal’s eyes narrowed.

“This waif has weakened you,” she spat. “But you can still regain your power.”

His rage flared. Rey’s fingers silently closed around the strap of her staff.

“You have forgotten your place,” he grimaced down at the cat. She bared her teeth.

“We shall see.”

Rey pushed off of the ash covered ground, tumbling out from between them an instant before they clashed.

She was pinned behind Ben, Chewie still at the mouth of the cave. Still unarmed. He roared to her as he pointed outside - something was approaching. Stormtroopers. She had no idea from which faction.

Rey swung her staff into a ready position, watching the jabs and slashes of the fight for a break in movement. The second they pushed apart, Rey tossed Chewie his bowcaster above their heads, and dove into the fight in the same movement.

The Jedi moved in sync. Rey swept at the cat’s feet as Ben pushed away her vicious hands. When she spun about to take another swipe at Rey’s wounded face, she found herself pulled away. Back to facing Ben.

The Cathar stood no chance. She knew this.

Rey kicked her squarely in the back. She tripped forward. Into his arms.

“I would fall to no other.” Her words were but a rasp of breath as their gazes remained locked.

He withdrew his blade from her chest and let her body fall limp to the ground.

Rey felt exhaustion overtake her before she saw him crumble to his knees.

Chewie was yowling again. It was only barely audible over Ben’s grief. The Stormtroopers were upon them.

“We have to go. Now.”

Ben stared up at her through tired eyes. Seemed to consider her words for a long time. Too long.

“Run,” he told her. He made no moves to stand. Left his lightsaber aglow.

Rey let her own anger course through their bond, for once.

“You are as foolish and stubborn as your uncle,” she snapped as she hooked an arm under his.

He wheezed a weak laugh at the comparison as she hauled him to his feet.


	10. Chapter 10

There was too much blood.

Every breath he took. He could feel it. His lungs were filling. He was swimming in it.

But she was so determined.

She’d dragged him to his feet. Slung his arm over her shoulder. And she trudged on.

It only took two steps before he was back on the ground, coughing and choking.

Force, how weak he was. How _pathetic_. Every word Snoke had spoken was true.

What a fittingly pointless end to his wasted life.

Rey snatched up her abandoned breathing mask and secured it to his face in spite of his protests.

“We have to move,” she pleaded. The footfalls of the troopers grew in volume. Ben examined the gashes across the side of her face. Absently noted that they were even more perfect mirror images of one another now.

She was still so beautiful…

Two arms hooked under his, one on each side. Chewbacca carried him with one hand and wielded his bowcaster with the other.

Chewbacca. Who had shot him not long ago. Shot him for killing his best friend. His own father.

Not a shot to kill. Ben gazed up at the Wookiee. He didn’t deserve his forgiveness. Nor his pity.

Ben’s toes carved a channel in the ash as he was carried along. A red flash and he realized Rey was wielding his saber. Deflecting blaster bolts. Protecting them. Protecting him.

She had come all this way. Endured such hardships.

He knew her to be the most selfless being in all of creation.

And he knew himself to be the most undeserving recipient.

The Falcon was in sight. Chewbacca howled. “Almost. Almost.” Rey chanted to him. But there was something else.

A presence.

Not on the planet’s surface. But above. Among the debris of the clashing fleets. The remnants of his once mighty armada.

“Mother.”

Rey’s head whipped about, and she stared at him in disbelief.

But it was real. His mother was there. Had equipped the Falcon with a tracker and followed in secret. Just to be certain.

Just to be safe.

She was anything but, now. He could feel his ships closing in around her own. The frantic energy that charged her bridge crew. The pressure drops of distant bulkheads blowing from the strain.

Her only thoughts of him.

“Mother,” he struggled against the arms holding him now. Chewbacca snarled as he quickened their pace.

“MOTHER!”

Their eyes followed his own to the brilliant white halo expanding amongst the debris. Rey fell to her knees at his side. A light had been extinguished.

Gone. Gone. Everything. Gone.

With a crook of his finger his saber returned to his hand.

“BEN, NO!” The words rung in his ears as he waded into the sea of white and black.

There was nothing left at all.

Blaster bolts bounced to and fro. Bodies dropped all around him. His injury was nothing but a distant thought.

She was _gone_.

So his horror would be, too.

His open hand extended to the stars. He knew what power he possessed.

Rey and Chewbacca could only watch as he ripped his own star destroyer out of the sky.


End file.
